Military

In the near future, the Army could be getting a futuristic weapons upgrade: ray guns. The electric guns are said to be in testing right now by the United States Army, and their purpose would be to disable electronics when soldiers are out on the battlefield. Though they’re futuristic in nature, they don’t look like cheesy ray guns from classic sci-fi movies. Rather, they’re standard M4 rifles with antennas jutting from the barrel, with the entire attachment being called the “Burke Pulser”.

Over-eye displays like that offered by Google Glass can serve many purposes -- they facilitate navigation without having to take one's eyes off the roads, for example, and allow data to be presented without pulling out a smartphone in the middle of a project. The military is one entity that can find ample uses for eye-mounted displays, and it is no stranger to such technology. Cost is a perennial problem, however, and so its mad scientist devision DARPA has come up with a budget-friendly Glass-like solution.

The US Navy thinks ducks — yes, the animal — are a good model for hunting down submarines. They can fly, swim, and dive, uniquely positioning them as a do-it-all model for hunting down submarines. The trouble is, ducks don’t go where submarines go, and it might be hard to train a duck to look for submarines. Instead, the Navy is building a drone codenamed WANDA that can fly (of course), but also dive into the sea and hunt down submarines.

DARPA has released its "Breakthrough Technologies for National Security" report, and in it the agency discusses its plans for the upcoming years. This time around, DARPA has laid out its plans to boost tech innovation to help it keep pace with the innovations being seen in other nations around the globe. The report claims the US is a technological leader in many areas, but that the wars it has been involved in over the last decade have required a lot of focus and during that time other nations have been moving quickly to close the gap.

One of the ways that pilots train in fighter jets is by engaging and shooting down aerial drone aircraft. The USAF has traditionally chosen to use Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom II jets as the flying targets for pilots to engage. The problem with using those F-4s is that they can no longer keep up with the modern fighter aircraft that the USAF flies.

While some some people, particularly those in science and medical circles, are trying to paint a less than apocalyptic picture of the use of lasers, some, like Lockheed Martin, are reinforcing that imagery. The security and aerospace company has just demonstrated how a laser with a 30-kilowatt punching force was able to stop a truck dead in its tracks by burning through the engine manifold in just a matter of seconds. And this was done, not at close range, but at a distance of more than a mile.

Most militaries in the world still fight with the same gun technology that has been around for decades. In Canada the Canadian Armed Forces are going to get a new weapon for soldiers to use called the Soldier Integrated Precision Effects System or SPIES. The weapon was developed by Defense Research and Development Canada.

The military could have a new robotic aid in the future, and it'll come in the form of a large studded rubber ball. Called the GuardBot, this robot ball is able to swim and roll across land, and could prove an invaluable tool in the military, as well in research projects and more. The GuardBot has been previously tested at the Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia, and it is now being tested at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab for potential use in "an operational environment".

The US Army recently posted a security code to GitHub with a goal of open-sourcing it to better understand when they come under cyber attack. Called Dshell, the code has been used for the past five years to analyze attacks on Department of Defense networks. The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) believes that the kind of cyber attacks launched on the government can be similar to those on the general public. Thus, they hope to get feedback from non-government users to better understand and prevent future attacks.

The launch of the third Mobile User Object Satellite or MUOS-3 may be downplayed by some because of its purpose of assisting, and therefore furthering, warfighting but the moment is also of significance to rocket science and engineering. The satellite has so far been the heaviest payload that the Altas V launch system has ever had to carry, testifying to the system's capability and the rocket's durability. It also marked the 200th launch of the Centaur upper stage on the Atlas in it's nearly 50 year run.

Virtual reality headsets are still a little ways out from reaching mainstream consumer adoption, but they're certainly finding use in more and more unexpected places. For example: The British Army has begun a new recruitment drive that uses the Oculus Rift to put users inside a tank during a live fire exercise. The headset is just part of an elaborate set up that aims to have people feel like they are truly riding in a heavily armored vehicle. The first such recruitment demonstrations for the public began on Friday in London.

Thinking of joining the U.S. armed forces with the hopes of becoming a candidate for the Navy SEAL program? Or just in fit condition and looking for a new challenge? The Official Navy SEAL Training app for iPhone is probably what you're looking for then, allowing you to test yourself against the actual physical screening test that SEAL candidates must pass to even be accepted into the program.